City of Shadows

by M J Lee

  There was nothing of interest, though. Just the remains of Cowan’s life deposited in the desk drawers like flotsam and jetsam floating on the ocean.

  He took the knife and wedged it in the open gap of the locked drawer. A quick jerk upwards with his elbow and it popped open.

  Strachan was beside him. ‘I don’t think you should have done that, sir.’

  ‘Sometimes it is necessary to use the skills of a thief, Strachan, especially when we want to find what we are looking for.’ He reached in and pulled out a brown box file.‘From Dr Fang, I believe.’

  On the cover was a case number and a date in Fang’s neat handwriting. Inside were the marked up files on the four autopsies that he had performed on each of the Lee family. Danilov glanced through the notes. ‘As rigorous as ever. Dr Fang never ceases to amaze me with his capacity for work.’

  Beneath the file lay a brown envelope. Danilov opened it and took out a smaller, white envelope hidden inside. This one showed creasing where it had been folded up and then pressed flat again. ‘I believe this is the missing letter found in the hand of the young girl. Please tell me what the Chinese says, Strachan.’

  The detective opened the envelope, took out the letter and began reading. ‘It’s from her cousin, sir, in Peking. She can’t wait for Nu Nu, that must be the pet name for the girl, to get better and visit them in their home. The girl has been horse riding recently at the Police Riding School. It seems her father is a policeman, sir. She wants to take Nu Nu riding with her.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all, sir. The writing seems to be that of a young girl, not very sophisticated, sir.’

  ‘You know about sophistication do you, Strachan?’

  The young detective blushed. ‘I just meant…’

  ‘When was it posted?’

  Strachan looked at the outside of the envelope. ‘It’s stamped as the fifth, sir, so it must have arrived on the sixth, the morning of the murder.’

  ‘The Post Office is so efficient, Strachan?’

  ‘It’s one of the few organisations in China that is, sir.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Danilov pinched his lips. ‘It’s interesting she says her father is a policeman. Can we find out his name, Strachan?’

  ‘I’ll get on it, sir.’

  ‘Cowan has vanished, yet he hides an important file in his desk. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. Perhaps, he hadn’t finished reading it.’

  Danilov stared at Strachan and shook his head. ‘Everything leads back to Cowan and his investigation of the murder of the Lee family. If we are going to catch the killer of Mr Kao, we have to speak to Cowan. Soon.’

  ‘You don’t think Kao committed the murders, sir?’

  ‘No, I don’t, Strachan. I think Cowan was looking for a fall guy and found the perfect one in Mr Kao. He could kill two birds with one stone. Literally. Get revenge on Kao and get Boyle off his back by arresting someone. Cowan was renowned for getting confessions from suspects.’

  ‘Well, what do we do next, sir?’

  ‘We go and see the one person who saw Kao’s murder up close.’

  ‘Detective Constable Moore?’

  ‘Right first time. But first I think we should visit the noodle stall outside to feed your brain, Strachan.’

  ‘I just can’t think when I’m hungry, sir.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Or at least, I can think, but the only thing that occupies my mind is food.’

  ‘A sorry state of affairs.’

  ‘You’ll join me, sir?’

  ‘I will, Strachan, but tea is enough to stimulate my mind.’

  ‘I can see you’re not Chinese, sir. Nobody with an ounce of Chinese blood would ever say something like that.’

  Chapter 40

  ‘He’s in there, sir’. The uniformed constable had checked Danilov and Strachan’s warrant cards carefully before handing them back.

  ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘According to the doctors, he’ll live. But he won’t be lifting his own beer for a while.’

  ‘Any visitors?’

  ‘Just a few of his friends from the station, sir.’

  ‘Good, keep an eye out. Let me know if Inspector Cowan ever comes here.’

  The constable nodded and stood to attention.

  Danilov knocked on the door of the hospital room and entered without waiting for a reply. The room was neat and tidy, if a little spartan. Moore was sitting up in bed, his left arm bandaged and held in place with a sling. He had an open face with a touch of red in the cheeks and fair hair that needed to see the teeth of a comb.

  A country face, thought Danilov, lacking the tightness and angles of the city. A country boy is Detective Constable Moore. But which country?

  He sat down opposite the young man, moving the tea cup on his side table to the centre so that it was exactly four inches from the corner. He placed a brown personnel file down on Moore’s bed, opened it and began to read.

  Strachan stood behind the Inspector next to the door.

  ‘It says here that you have been in the force for four years.’

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  Ireland, thought Danilov. A country boy from Ireland. He returned to the file, turning over one of the pages. ‘No demerits and no merits during that time. Recently promoted to the detective force.’

  ‘Also correct, sir.’

  ‘You were assigned to the Lee case with Inspector Cowan?’

  ‘Is this a formal investigation, sir?’

  ‘No, I’m just asking a few questions to find out what happened. But tell me, why should there be an official inquiry?’

  Moore looked around him. ‘You are investigating the shooting from yesterday. I just thought...’

  ‘Don’t think, Constable Moore, just answer the questions.’

  Moore remained silent.

  ‘You were assigned to the Lee case with Inspector Cowan?’

  ‘Correct, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Inspector Cowan asked for me, sir. Said that it would give me experience.’

  ‘Had you worked a murder case before?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Danilov looked at the file again. ‘It says here you spent four years on the beat before being promoted.’

  ‘Not really on the beat, sir. I was in traffic.’

  ‘And you were promoted two weeks ago to the detective squad?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So this is your first case?’

  Moore sighed loudly. ‘What’s all this about? They said that you wanted to see me. I thought it was about the shooting.’

  Danilov began to roll a cigarette, laying out the strands of blond tobacco in a neat line along the pristine white paper. ‘Why would you think that?’ Danilov offered the tin of tobacco to the constable. ‘Should I call you Robert or Bob?’

  Moore smiled and shook his head, taking his own cigarettes, Sweet Afton, from the side table.

  ‘You smoke those? I find them a little bitter despite the name.’

  ‘Habit, sir. They were the only ones we could get in the village back home in Ireland, so I guess I got a taste for them. Most of the men call me Robert.’

  Danilov exhaled the smoke in three wonderfully concentric circles.

  ‘That’s a neat trick.’

  ‘The sign of a misspent youth, Robert.’ He sat back in the hard chair. ‘Tell me about the investigation into the murder of the Lee family.’

  ‘Not much to tell. Inspector Cowan said I should go along with him when the call came in.’

  ‘His usual constable was Griffin, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Griffin was on a course, I was a temporary replacement.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The call came in...’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘I presume the duty office.’

  ‘Who took the call?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did you respond immediately?’

  Moore took a long
drag on his cigarette before answering, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling. ‘As quickly as we could, sir.’

  ‘A nothing answer, Constable Moore. It says here,’ Danilov stabbed his finger into the case notes, ‘that the call came in at 9.37 pm. Yet, you didn’t arrive on the scene until 10.25 pm. The Lee house is only five minutes from the station. What took you so long?’

  Moore took another long drag on his cigarette, ejecting the smoke out through his nostrils. ‘I couldn’t find Inspector Cowan. He wasn’t in the station. I nearly called you, sir, to come in, but then Cowan turned up.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  Moore shrugged his shoulders and immediately winced with the pain. ‘He didn’t say, sir. He just walked in and we went to the Lee house straight away. The uniforms were already outside when we got there.’

  ‘They hadn’t gone in?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Cowan took out his gun and checked if mine was loaded. It was the first time I had ever got the bloody thing out, except for the practice range. We went through the courtyard door.’

  ‘Was it open?’

  Moore closed his eyes, remembering that night. ‘It was closed but unlocked. Inspector Cowan was in front and I was behind. We went in, crossed the courtyard and entered the main door of the house. There was a young lad on the floor in the hall, blood pouring out of him. Cowan knelt down to check him, but it was obvious he was dead.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘We went up the stairs. It was as still as a dead donkey in the house. The woman was lying on the first landing.’

  ‘Didn’t you check out the kitchen and downstairs rooms?’

  ‘No, sir. We went straight upstairs. Inspector Cowan must have seen the woman on the landing. She was lying there, on her front. Cowan turned her over.’

  ‘He turned her over?’

  ‘To check if she was dead, sir.’

  ‘And was she?’

  ‘No, sir, her breathing was shallow and she’d lost a lot of blood, but she was still alive.’

  Danilov exhaled a long breath of blue smoke. It clustered around the light forming thin, wispy clouds. Moore took another nervous drag from his Sweet Afton, stubbing the half-finished cigarette out in the ashtray.

  ‘We went up the next flight of stairs. The door was open and a man was lying there. He had been shot too.’

  ‘You didn’t check the other bedrooms?’

  ‘We did, but later. We found a young girl in her bed, shot through the head.’

  Danilov pinched his bottom lip with his index finger and thumb. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Cowan sent me outside to call the station for an ambulance.’

  ‘He was left inside?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I dunno. A couple of minutes I would be thinking. I had to make the call from the police box at the entrance to the estate.’

  ‘The uniforms stayed outside the house all this time?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Cowan didn’t want them inside.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘I went back into the house. Inspector Cowan told me not to bother with the ambulance. He said I had taken so long the woman had already died.’

  ‘Not a pleasant thing to say.’

  ‘He’s not a pleasant man, sir.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Soon afterwards all the others turned up. The rapid action force, the fingerprint and photograph boys, the ambulance. Inspector Cowan closed off the house and the street, sir.’

  ‘Did you canvas the street?’

  ‘I started to, sir. I talked to one of the neighbours, but she was an old lady who wasn’t right in the head if you know what I mean. Then, Inspector Cowan told me not to bother as it was getting late.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Past two, sir. We went home, leaving a uniform outside the house.’

  ‘And the next morning?’

  ‘The next morning, I arrived at 8 am. Inspector Cowan told me he had received a tip-off that a man hiding on the second floor of an address in Chefoo Road was the culprit. We started organising a raid with the Rapids.’

  ‘Didn’t you think it was strange to receive a tip-off so quickly?’

  ‘I thought Cowan had put the word out, sir. He seemed to have a lot of contacts for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Why did you not write in the report that the woman was alive when you found her?’

  ‘Inspector Cowan told me to ignore it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Again, Moore shrugged his shoulders. It was an action that was beginning to annoy Danilov. ‘I suppose he didn’t want the discovery of the bodies to be too complicated.’

  ‘Just tell me what happened, Detective Constable Moore, let me do the supposing,’ Danilov snapped.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Danilov grunted and looked down at the notes on the table. ’You took part in the raid?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The Rapids went in first. Myself and Inspector Cowan waited outside till they had arrested the man.’

  ‘Then you brought him here and interviewed him.’

  ‘We brought him here, but Cowan wanted to leave him to stew in a cell for a few hours, sir. Put the fear of God into him, Cowan said.’

  ‘And then you interviewed him?’

  ‘Cowan interviewed him with a local sergeant.’

  ‘You weren’t there?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But you were told he confessed?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What did you think about him?’

  ‘About who, sir?’

  ‘The man you arrested. Mr Kao was his name, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Mr Kao Ker Lien, sir.’

  ‘Him. What did you think?’

  ‘A little strange, sir. Lost. Like he couldn’t quite work out where he was.’

  ‘Did he resist arrest?’

  Moore’s eyes flicked from Danilov to Strachan and back again.

  ‘Come on, Constable Moore, I have only to ask the Rapids to find out the truth.’

  Moore slumped in his bed. ‘No, sir, he didn’t resist arrest. He kept asking what he had done wrong. Inspector Cowan and the Chinese sergeant went in the back of the van with him. They said he attacked them when they were driving back to the station.’

  ‘But you don’t believe them?’

  Moore shook his head. ‘He wasn’t the type, sir. Not a fighter.’

  ‘Have you seen Inspector Cowan since the shooting?’

  ‘No, sir. Nobody has seen him. Maybe, he just went on a bender, sir, and is sleeping it off.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  Moore stopped speaking. He reached for his pack of Sweet Aftons and lit one clumsily.

  ‘You asked the other detectives to go round to his home, but he wasn’t there. In fact, you probably asked them to go to all his usual haunts. Am I right?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘It’s what my sergeant would have done for me in the same situation. Cover for me until he could get me back on track.’

  Moore looked away. ‘Nobody has seen Inspector Cowan. He’s just vanished, sir.’

  Chapter 41

  Elina met Ivan outside the New World Centre. As soon as she arrived, he had leant forward to kiss her on both cheeks. The touch of his beard created a shiver of excitement that ran through her body.

  ‘I have a treat for you tonight.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He held out his elbow. ‘Come with me, milady, and I will show you.’

  She thought for a moment before hooking her hand into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Come on, it’s not far. Just in Little Russia.’

  ‘Little Russia?’

  ‘You haven’t been there yet? Elina, what have you been doing in Shanghai?’

  They walked down a maze of filthy streets crossing into the French Concession, finally stopping at the corner of Rue Roi d’Albert.

  ‘Voi
là,’ said Ivan with a flourish of his arm.

  Above the door, a sign read Allaverdy in bright green letters. Out from the entrance, stepped a tall, elegantly dressed man wearing the long coat of the Caucasus and a resplendent woollen hat.

  ‘Welcome to Allaverdy.’ He bowed and ushered them in, showing them to a small table in the corner.

  ‘Bring us champagne and zakuski. We want to have fun tonight.’

  The man bowed once more.

  The other tables were already occupied, all by couples, each one with their heads close together as if telling each other secrets.

  The champagne arrived and so did a thin musician, whose trousers were held up by a piece of orange rope. Elina noticed that he wore no socks with his shoes and it seemed as though he hadn’t eaten for days. But as soon as he sat down at the piano, he was transformed. His fingers flowed over the keyboard, producing a Cossack melody that she vaguely recognised.

  Ivan had been watching her this whole time. ‘You haven’t been out much, have you?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Your father keeps you locked up at home in case somebody comes along to spirit you away from him?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  A female dancer moved in front of the piano and immediately the pianist began to play a polka. She twirled around on the dance floor, snapping her fingers and clicking her heels, lost in the energy of the music.

  With a flourish, she finished her dance and waited for the applause. The other couples and Ivan responded, one even cheering her enthusiastically.

  Elina picked up her glass of champagne. It was empty already, how had that happened? A waiter filled it up for her.

  Ivan picked up his glass. ‘A toast. To the Ice Queen. May she melt just a little tonight.’

  ‘Am I the Ice Queen?’

  ‘Frozen to the core.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cold, it’s just that…’

  ‘You’re not used to going out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well tonight, my little Lenchik, you have been released from your cage. Tonight, for one night only, you are free.’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ She raised her glass of champagne and toasted him. ‘To freedom.’

  ‘Waiter, bring us another bottle of champagne. The Ice Queen has finally melted.’